Related Topics

Intermediate Reading Passages: Plato's Dialogues

In general, these passages assume that you have completed all the basic
grammar, but occasionally they use a form you may not be familiar with.
Don't panic. Keep your wits and make an educated guess. Then go on.

If you want to review some endings before tackling the passages, visit
Smythe's
Greek Grammar. Feel free to skip over the explanations to find
what you are looking for. If you are looking for help with Greek syntax
(e.g., the meaning of the cases), click on Rydberg-Cox, Overview
of Greek Syntax

To read these texts, you will need a Greek font. Click here for Perseus'
Greek Font Display
Help to decide which font works best for your computer.

The Death of Socrates, excerpts from Plato's Phaedo

"The beginning of the mission is when the priest of Apollo wreathes
the stern of the ship," Phaedo
58c-d

"On the previous days, I and the others had been accustomed
to visit Socrates," Phaedo
59d-e

"We [went in and] caught Socrates just released from his bonds,"
Phaedo
60a-b

After Socrates rubs his leg and comments on pleasure and pain, he
and his friends discuss at length the subject of immortality. At the
conclusion of the dialogue, Crito asks Socrates, "In what way
are we to bury you?" Phaedo
115c2-e

"Having said these things, he stood up [and went] into a room
in order to bathe," Phaedo
116a2-b

"[A servant of the eleven came and stood] beside him and said,"I
shall not blame you," Phaedo
116c-d

"And Crito said, 'But I think, Socrates, that the sun is still
upon the mountains and has not yet set,'" Phaedo
116e-117a3

"If a difference appears in respect to a skill or any other
pursuit in respect to the race of men and women then we will say that
it is necessary to give this to each [equally]," Republic
454d (last par.) - 454e

"You speak the truth, he said, that one race excels the other
in all things, so to speak, but," Republic
455d-e

"Therefore women such as these [women fit to be a guardian]
must be chosen to live and guard together with men of the same sort,"
Republic
456b-c

"The institution which we have set up for the state is not only
possible, but also the best (457a)," Socrates says. "We
might say that we have escaped one wave concerning the legislation
having to do with women, with the result that we have not been inundated
entirely" Republic
457b (last par.) - 457d (first par.)

"I now become lazy/soft, and I desire to postpone these things
[whether it is possible to have wives and children in common] and
examine them later how they are possible," Republic
458b

Plato, Lysis (On Friendship)

"I was traveling from the Academy straight to the Lyceum,"
Plato
203a-b